Life’s little luxuries and lots of inspiration

Paleo Style Chocolate Tahini Cookies

The recipe for these paleo style Chocolate Tahini Cookies was inspired by my love for one of the best dessert flavor combinations ever – chocolate and peanut butter.

I had been wanting to develop a paleo cookie with this sort of flavor combination for a while. But most of all, I wanted to create a cookie that would truly be Pinterest-worthy, yummy, offbeat and actually really beautiful – a cookie work of art! Needless to say, the month of June, for me, consisted of a lot of baking and googling recipes for inspiration.

While it’s not paleo-approved, the Chocolate Tahini Cookie is paleo-friendly. If you are on a very strict Whole 30 or paleo diet, this cookie is not for you. See my note in the recipe notes section.

I do hope you’ll try these cookies. I think they’d be great as a gift, presented in a pretty box or in a celophan bag with a beautiful ribbon. Of course, you could add them to a cookie tray for variety.

Bake for 10 minutes until bottoms just start to turn brown. Be sure to check cookies for doneness around 7 minutes.

Remove cookies from oven and cool 2-3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Let the cookies cool on the wire rack for 30 minutes before adding the glaze.

Tahini & Chocolate Glaze Instructions

With the cookies still on the cooling rack, place them over paper towels or parchment paper. (*This is to catch the glaze that drips during the glazing process.)

Melt ¼ cups of Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips in 1 tablespoon of coconut oil stovetop, using a wooden spoon to stir the chips as they melt.

When melted, remove pan from heat and place on a cooling mat near the cookies.

While the chocolate is still warm, use a spoon or a fork to scrape chocolate from the pan and drizzles as desired on top of the cookies.

Store-bought tahini can be drizzled on top of the cookies after the chocolate sauce has cooled using the same technique.

Recipe Notes:

My mom taught me to use an ice cream scoop with a lever to drop cookie dough onto a baking sheet. It’s among my favorite tips she’s given me…and her tips are genius….:) The lever pushes the dough out of the scoop. My tip is to spray the scopp with a bit of extra light olive oil to keep the batter from sticking. I use Bertolli Extra Light Olive Oil Cooking Spray because no chemical are expelled from the can, as is the case with other oil sprays.

For the chocolate chunks, I used a brand from Whole Foods called Lilly. I’m wild about this chocolate because it is sweetened with Stevia as opposed to white, refined sugar. I will say that it does contain dairy, but in the grand scheme of things it’s a great option.

I used Whole Foods brand Tahini and I really love it. Tahini is simple ground sesame seeds, so it is good for those with nut allergies. And, I find it to be a healthier substitute to peanut butter.

As usual, my oven baked these cookies super fast. My cookies were done in 7 minutes, so keep an eye on your cookies once they get close to the 7 minute mark.

These cookies involve a couple extra steps compared to most simple drop cookies. Still, I think it’s worth it. If you really want to reduce the preparation time, you can add the pecans to the batter without toasting them in the coconut sugar.

If you like salt, you can add the sea salt both prior to popping the cookies into the oven and just after they are removed from the oven.

These cookies come very close to being “paleo,” but do contain trace amounts of dairy and evaporated cane juice. Still, cookies are supposed to be a treat, so I think one or two would be fine…enjoy a little.

My final tip is this, if you are going to melt chocolate you might as well have a few strawberries around to dip in the extra chocolate. You’ll definitely have extra chocolate left over.

A Look at the Process:

Started this recipe off with some of my favorite ingredients…. honey, coconut milk and vanilla extract from Mexico…the best vanilla extract..

You can definitely skip this step if you want to save some time. However, pecans lightly toasted in coconut sugar are delicious!!

I added chopped pieces of Lilly’s chocolate to the batter. It’s great because it is sweetened with stevia as opposed to white, refined sugar. You can find it at Whole Foods.

To minimize the mess, I placed parchment paper under the cookies prior to drizzling them with melted chocolate and tahini. As you can see, I use Whole Foods brand tahini, but you can easily make your own tahini.